Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration — Breakdowns to Breakthroughs examination

Eleven questions. Nine of eleven passes, and you can take it again as often as you like.

What changes about inner conflict when the vertical dimension opens at Level III?

The conflict disappears and is replaced by a calm, settled certainty The conflict runs between two equally attractive social groups competing for loyalty The conflict runs between what is and what could be, the actual and the ideal The conflict is resolved by choosing one option quickly and decisively
The single-story house with a newly appeared staircase is used to illustrate what?

Gradually adding new skills to an identity that is already stable and settled Returning to a familiar earlier home after a long period of wandering and exile Choosing between two equally comfortable ways of living on the same level Seeing one's old life from a higher vantage, with clarity that cannot be undone
In Kegan's terms, what happens to the personality structure at Level III?

What was object becomes subject again, so the person fuses more deeply with their personality What was subject becomes object, so the person can see the water they were swimming in The personality becomes invisible again as a new identity forms The personality structure is replaced before it can be examined
How does Level III dissatisfaction with oneself differ from ordinary self-criticism?

It is milder and fades once external circumstances start to improve It focuses mainly on social mistakes and breaches of good etiquette It judges the self from a higher vantage, not within existing values It is driven by other people's opinions rather than by one's own
What does the chapter conclude about the Dark Night of the Soul, the dukkha nanas and fana?

They map the same developmental territory as Level III from different traditions They describe three distinct processes that share no common ground at all They show that Level III is always, at root, a religious experience They prove that intensive contemplative practice causes clinical depression
How does existential depression at Level III differ from depression rooted mainly in biochemical imbalance, as the chapter describes it?

It arises from seeing too clearly the gap between what is and what could be It arises from concluding that nothing in life really matters at all It arises from a single traumatic event in the person's early childhood It arises mainly from a lack of social contact and daily activity
Which somatic practice from Somatic Experiencing does the chapter describe as gently alternating attention between distress and ease?

Grounding Extended exhale breathing Pendulation Ecstatic dance
During Level III, one part pushes hyper-productivity, another demands moving abroad immediately, and a third tries to intellectualise everything. What does the chapter call this?

An exile emergence A manager mutiny A firefighter activation A Self-led unburdening
Why does the chapter treat the emergence of exiles as a developmental opportunity?

Exiles are the parts least likely to be carrying any real pain from the past Exiles can be permanently sealed away once they have been properly identified Exiles replace the managers as the new and more trustworthy leaders of the system Met with Self-energy they can be unburdened, freeing energy spent suppressing truth
Someone in Level III begins describing their Dark Night as proof they are spiritually ahead of their friends. Which unhelpful pattern does the chapter name?

Rushing toward resolution Comparison Spiritual inflation Positive maladjustment
How does the chapter mark the threshold from Level III into Level IV?

By a changed relationship to suffering, from being subject to it to working with it By the complete absence of suffering and of any remaining inner conflict By a single dramatic event that brings the whole crisis to an end, more or less overnight By returning to the familiar routines and roles of the person's earlier life